“I am so very sorry to report that one of the Assessor/Recorder employees in attendance at the event was shot twice and, tragically, passed away this morning,” San Bernardino County Interim CEO Dena Smith said in an email to the Board of Supervisors on Monday.

She said the Department of Behavioral Health had been in touch with Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk Bob Dutton, and counselors had been dispatched to his office.

“I’ve got people going home. I’ve got four crisis counselors here now. I’m still trying to assess how we’re going to continue to service the public, and if I need to call in a favor from Riverside County,” Dutton said in a telephone interview Monday.

Dutton identified the employee killed in the attack as Deputy Recorder Dana Gardner, 52, a county employee of 26 years whom he described as a “go-to” person and a “dedicated public servant.”

“She had a lot of knowledge. She was a great employee,” Dutton said.

Gardner began working for the county on Aug. 26, 1991 as a document clerk in the Recorder’s Office, which was then part of the Auditor-Controller’s office. She was promoted to a legal document coordinator in 2004 and deputy recorder in 2015, county spokesman David Wert said.

Wert said in an email that six county employees, including Gardner, were wounded or killed in the shooting. Others wounded included a sheriff’s sergeant, probation officer, county firefighter, and employees of the Human Services and Fleet Management departments. All were attending Sunday’s country music festival in a “non-official capacity,” Wert said.

Las Vegas authorities reported 527 people injured in the mass shooting, called the deadliest in modern U.S. history.

Dutton said he arrived at his office Monday morning to find his staff shaky and grief-stricken.

The flags outside the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health building and the Assessor’s Office has been lowered to half staff for the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting on Monday, Oct. 1, 2017. Dana Gardner, a deputy recorder for the San Bernardino County Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk’s Office, was among those killed during Sunday nights mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. (Stan Lim, San Bernardino Sun/SCNG)

“Everybody here is still in shock. They’re waiting for (Gardner) to walk through the door,” Dutton said.

He said he was contacted shortly before 7 a.m. by Assistant Recorder Joani Finwall, who informed him that Gardner had been shot twice — once in the chest and once in the arm.

“She was in touch with (Gardner’s) daughter,” Dutton said. “Obviously Joani was very rattled, concerned about Dana and her daughter.”

By 7:30 a.m., Dutton said he had been in contact with Finwall three times, the last to notify him of the grim news that Gardner had died.

At Gardner’s home in Grand Terrace on Monday, cars and trucks lined the curb outside the house as people streamed inside to offer condolences to the family. A man who answered the door said the family did not wish to comment. He said Gardner had a daughter and two sons.

#SBCProbation had several people in attendance at the concert in Las Vegas and one was shot. Thankfully, that officer was treated, released and is now with family. Please keep the victims of this tragedy in your thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/RTRF4WY5ip

Sheriff John McMahon confirmed that Sgt. Brad Powers, a 19-year veteran of the department assigned to the Fontana station, was among the wounded. He said Powers was in critical but stable condition at a Las Vegas hospital.

San Bernardino sheriff’s Sgt Brad Powers suffered a gun shot Sunday, October 1, 2017 during the shooting in Las Vegas. He is listed in critical condition. (Courtesy photo)

“I want to thank everyone who came to Brad’s aid. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers,” McMahon said in a statement Monday.

The San Bernardino County Probation Office confirmed that one of its officers was wounded in the shooting as well, but said no personal information about the officer was going to be released. However, in a statement, Officer Stephanie Roque, spokeswoman for the department, said, “she is with family and is resting because, as you can imagine, it was a very traumatic event.”

Smith said in her email to the board, “I am pleased to report that the individual from probation has undergone surgery, been released and is heading home.”

McMahon decamped for Las Vegas Monday, where a crisis management team was gearing up for deployment. District Attorney’s Office spokesman Christopher Lee said District Attorney Mike Ramos was meeting with his chief of victim services and preparing the team to assist the shooting victims and their families.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Lovingood directed flags to be lowered to half-staff at all county facilities, Smith said.

Smith informed supervisors in her email she would be in contact with all department heads to discuss on-site counseling services being made available to employees.

“I will also be reaching out to the administrators for the city of Las Vegas and Clark County this morning to express our condolences and determine if there is anything we can do to assist,” Smith said in her email.

News of the county employees killed or injured in Sunday night’s shooting echoed Dec. 2, 2015, when 14 people were killed — 13 of them county environmental health services employees — in a mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center, committed by county health inspector Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik. The couple was killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack, determined by the FBI to be an act of terrorism.

“With respect to our December 2 victims, I understand some of our folks contacted the Counseling Team International last night,” Smith said in her email to the board. “As in the past, CTI will be on site this morning.”

Counseling Team International is a San Bernardino-based counseling center, with offices across Southern California, that has long provided crisis counseling services to police officers and sheriff’s deputies, but following the IRC shooting expanded its services to other county employees.

Veronica Kelley, Director of the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, issued a statement Monday saying her department was “deeply saddened by the events of the Las Vegas shooting.”

“We are actively providing crisis response interventions as needed to county staff and the community at large,” Kelley said. “The access unit provides connection to behavioral health crisis services to all of San Bernardino County and is available 24/7.”

County Supervisor Janice Rutherford posted a statement on her personal Facebook page Monday morning after hearing the news.

“I know I am not the only parent who held their kids a moment longer this morning as my heart begged that they never even leave our house,” Rutherford said. “My heart aches for those who lost loved ones last night and prays for those who were injured.”

Joe Nelson is an award-winning investigative reporter who has worked for The Sun since November 1999. He started as a crime reporter and went on to cover a variety of beats including courts and the cities of Colton, Highland and Grand Terrace. He has covered San Bernardino County since 2009. Nelson is a graduate of California State University Fullerton. In 2014, he completed a fellowship at Loyola Law School's Journalist Law School program.